Judith Dellheim: Opening

This is the fourth meeting of our EU experts’ discussions and I should like to remind or to inform you, very briefly, about its history and also about the main ideas of this project or its underlying “philosophy”.
Our first EU experts’ discussion has taken place in December 2011. It had the ironic title “Crisis, Crisis, Euro Crisis” and helped to overcome More

Özge Yaka: Limits of the Core-­‐Periphery Model in the Analysis of the Contemporary Political Environment

The core periphery model, which belongs to the language of the pre 1980 era, has recently returned to the academic and political language in the context of the Euro‐zone-crisis. The model, which was originally developed against the modernisation school and Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantages, was aiming to reveal the structural processes and mechanisms which consistently disfavour primary producer countries of the periphery against the industrial western core. More

Marica Frangakis: The Case of Greece

The Eurozone crisis has re-introduced the notions of core/periphery into the debate. However, this is a theoretically contested area between those who place special emphasis on international relations and those who emphasize class relations. In view of the complexity of the subject, analyzing a particular case study can shed light on its multiple dimensions, so that conclusions of a more general applicability may be drawn. More

Joachim Becker: Enlarging the EU Sphere of Influence Eastwards – Or: The Dialectics of Integration and Disintegration

In the face of the austerity-induced depression of the domestic markets in the EU, the EU and its main powers bank on the expansion of economic relations beyond the EU and free trade agreements. The coalition agreement of social democrats and Christian democrats in Germany, the dominant EU power, is characteristic of this thinking. It is extremely brief and unimaginative in its paragraphs on the EU, but dedicates detailed and highlighted paragraphs on the Germany’s economic relationship with so-called emerging economies and on EU free trade agreements More

Workshop Organizers: A Few More Remarks

We now propose the following workshop parts:

  • I. Global Context, Experience and Theoretical Basics
  • II. Financialisation and Transnationalisation; Social and Production Structures
  • III. Case Studies in Regard to Countries
  • IV. More specifically on Alternatives

Weiterlesen

Judith Dellheim: “Peripherisation”?

Rosa Luxemburg clearly demonstrates how political economy can readily be turned into a tool to strengthen people’s struggles for emancipation and how solidarity can reveal opportunities for action. Luxemburg saw herself as a global, socialist citizen in the sense that she expressed solidarity with people who were exploited and oppressed by those in power, regardless of their nationality or citizenship. Her goal was to understand and explain how exploitation takes place, how it is constantly renewed, and the consequences exploitation has at the individual, family and community level. Weiterlesen

Daniela Gabor: The Romanian Financial System: From Central Bank-Led to Dependent Financialisation

This study argues that financialisation is not a phenomenon exclusively associated with complex innovation in highly developed financial markets. Financialisation also affects countries with „shallow“ financial markets but with a significant presence of transnational financial actors that become a powerpul economic and political force able to navigate and shape uneven regulatory and institutional terrains in order to sustain new modes of profit generation. The study distinguishes two stages in the financialisation of the Romanian economy. The first, central bank dominated. Weiterlesen